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Rasputina - [All Tomorrow's Parties]--- I wrote this in Mortal Questions, when i probably should have been paying attention to Marx, Rousseau, and Schoppenhauer.
{War. An intrinsic part of my being, and something I understand as necessary. I don't like it. But i've come to the conclusion that Humans have lost respect for it, and understanding of it, as a whole. We press the buttons and we kill People, without ever seeing their faces. How does this, Ever, help us to understand why we go to war? We speak of freedoms and rights and pains and Injustices. And then we never understand why we fight, who we are killing, what we are taking away from people, friends, families, fathers brothers sisters sons uncles cousins daughters mothers aunts. Grandparents. Because we pressed a button, pulled a trigger, flew a plane into a building. And we have never understood.
We used to approach war thinking that we would kill or be killed. Fighting was inevitable, victory was not. No matter what kind of morale boosting speeches we gave. But we still didn't understand the Enemy. We knew that they wanted us dead, or gone, or Theirs, but why? What's the motivation? Or does it simply come down to "Because god said so"? Show me where, and get it to say the same to Me, and then i'll believe it. We don't know our enemy. They don't know us. So it's easy for us to objectify each other. We don't think of them as fellow humans, but as Soldiers. At least when we had to stick a sword/spear/flaming, jagged hunk of metal into a person, we knew, at last, what we had done.
We began to loose respect for war, with the invention of the gun. We made technological advances, yes and guns came along with many benefits, and no, the entire course of human history would not be the same, without them, but we've lost what it means to have a war. A slow decline of the respect for human life. Or the understanding of it.
*Klaxon Alarms Blaring*
"What'd you DO?!"
"I just pressed the button!"
"Oh... Well that's all right, then."
*Fade out as the atmosphere catches fire*}
Said it before and i'll say it again: The Baron was right. You don't even have to see them? What's the fun in that?
Off to take a metaphysics test. See you kats and koshkas later.
{War. An intrinsic part of my being, and something I understand as necessary. I don't like it. But i've come to the conclusion that Humans have lost respect for it, and understanding of it, as a whole. We press the buttons and we kill People, without ever seeing their faces. How does this, Ever, help us to understand why we go to war? We speak of freedoms and rights and pains and Injustices. And then we never understand why we fight, who we are killing, what we are taking away from people, friends, families, fathers brothers sisters sons uncles cousins daughters mothers aunts. Grandparents. Because we pressed a button, pulled a trigger, flew a plane into a building. And we have never understood.
We used to approach war thinking that we would kill or be killed. Fighting was inevitable, victory was not. No matter what kind of morale boosting speeches we gave. But we still didn't understand the Enemy. We knew that they wanted us dead, or gone, or Theirs, but why? What's the motivation? Or does it simply come down to "Because god said so"? Show me where, and get it to say the same to Me, and then i'll believe it. We don't know our enemy. They don't know us. So it's easy for us to objectify each other. We don't think of them as fellow humans, but as Soldiers. At least when we had to stick a sword/spear/flaming, jagged hunk of metal into a person, we knew, at last, what we had done.
We began to loose respect for war, with the invention of the gun. We made technological advances, yes and guns came along with many benefits, and no, the entire course of human history would not be the same, without them, but we've lost what it means to have a war. A slow decline of the respect for human life. Or the understanding of it.
*Klaxon Alarms Blaring*
"What'd you DO?!"
"I just pressed the button!"
"Oh... Well that's all right, then."
*Fade out as the atmosphere catches fire*}
Said it before and i'll say it again: The Baron was right. You don't even have to see them? What's the fun in that?
Off to take a metaphysics test. See you kats and koshkas later.
